


under the gun (all in)

by Damkianna



Category: The Firm (TV)
Genre: Antagonism, Bad Decisions, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Drunk Sex, Forced Cohabitation, Kidnapping, Loyalty, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Protectiveness, Trust Issues, Uneasy Allies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 07:04:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16849399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: The safehouse was fine.Or, well. There was nothing wrong with it, at least. It was a nice, nondescript house in a quiet neighborhood, thoroughly unremarkable except for the part where the blinds stayed drawn 24/7. It was comfortable enough.None of that could stop Mitch from hating it anyway.But at least there was a silver lining, petty though it might be: Joey hated it, too.





	under the gun (all in)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/gifts).



> This ... um, got away from me a little bit, Sandrine, but I hope very much that you enjoy it—thank you so much for your wonderful letter, and for all your prompts and likes and enthusiasm, which is at least three-quarters of the reason this got as long as it did. Honestly, this is your own fault. :D Happy Yuletide!
> 
> This is set a little while after the end of the show (and deliberately doesn't get into whatever was happening in that very last SIX WEEKS LATER set of shots), and posits that a few non-canonical events have taken place since then. Also, all of the stuff about law, medicine, witness protection, and crime is deliberately vague and/or handwaved, because everything I "know" about those subjects I learned from TV. Sorry!
> 
> "Under the gun" is a poker term for being the player seated in the position which is earliest to act—i.e., being the first player required to place an actual bet (rather than a blind).

 

 

**PART ONE:**

**ante up.**  
To place some amount of money (the "ante") in the pot before betting has begun.

 

The safehouse was fine.

Or, well. There was nothing wrong with it, at least. It was a nice, nondescript house in a quiet neighborhood, thoroughly unremarkable except for the part where the blinds stayed drawn 24/7. It was comfortable enough.

None of that could stop Mitch from hating it anyway.

But at least there was a silver lining, petty though it might be: Joey hated it, too.

It wasn't hard to tell. Even before Mitch had ever been in the same room with Joey Morolto, he wouldn't have expected Joey to be the kind of person who found it easy to sit still and do nothing. And now that they _had_ been in the same room, over and over and over—now that they were locked in the same house—it was more obvious than ever that Joey was, in fact, completely terrible at sitting still and doing nothing.

If anything, he needed the practice, Mitch thought grimly. He needed to figure out how to hold still for five goddamn minutes, instead of double-tapping his own consigliere in the head because he thought he'd been asked to, or shooting people's hard-earned bar certificates, or having angry Russian mobsters murdered.

And Mitch could admit it was a little satisfying, knowing exactly how much Joey was itching with the enforced inactivity. Just his luck that it was also unbelievably annoying.

Mitch was trying to read one of the cheap paperbacks he'd managed to turn up from the depths of his suitcase. But Joey had found a deck of cards in a drawer somewhere, and he was shuffling them, shuffling them, shuffling them; dealing them out with little flicks, so the stiff old cards snapped a little as they went, and then gathering them up off the coffee table, knocking them back together into the deck with a couple sharp taps against the table edge, just so he could start shuffling them _again_.

The noise was just inconsistent enough that Mitch couldn't quite ignore it, and just distracting enough that he kept reaching the end of a paragraph, realizing he couldn't remember what it had said, and having to start over. And this book really wasn't so good a match to Mitch's taste that he wanted to read every page of it ten times.

"Want a break?"

Mitch clenched his teeth, breathed in slow through his nose, and then made himself look up.

Joey was sitting in a club chair, across the coffee table from where Mitch had installed himself on the couch; he was leaning forward in it to reach the coffee table, elbows propped on his knees. And he was watching Mitch—and holding up the deck of cards, tilting them in his hand as he raised his eyebrows. He jerked his chin in the direction of Mitch's book, and added, "Doesn't seem like you're getting very far."

It was interesting, Mitch thought, how there was something about Joey's voice that made at least half the things he said come out sounding like taunts.

"I'm fine, thanks," he said aloud, flatly.

"You sure? One game, just to clear your head, and you can dive right back into—" Joey ducked his head a little, tipped it, and read off the cover: "'Sizzling Sixteen'?"

"It was cheap," Mitch snapped. "They were selling used copies in the airport when we—" He stopped. _When we moved the last time; when they moved us, again, and changed our names, again, and Claire was crying in the airport bathroom and Abby couldn't get her to come out_ —except he didn't want to tell Joey that. Joey didn't have the right to hear that. It had been Joey's fault, in a way, even if Mitch hadn't known he existed yet. Even if the Mitch he'd been back then, forking over a wrinkled ten-dollar bill for Janet Evanovich in paperback, trying to give himself something to think about besides the way Abby had looked at him before she'd gone after Claire, couldn't possibly have predicted he'd end up in a safehouse in DC with Joey Morolto, Jr., and the noisiest deck of cards on the planet.

He made himself look up again. Joey was still watching him, eyes narrowing just a little.

"What would be the point?" Mitch said, and it came out quiet and—and kind of cold, colder than he'd meant, and sharper. But he was frustrated, dammit, and there was something horribly satisfying about taking it out on Joey, even just a little. "You'd only cheat anyway."

Joey kept looking at him for a moment without moving, and then smiled, the thin cold way he smiled when he wasn't really smiling at all. "You could be right," he said, and his tone was like that smile: bland, mild, in a way that was actually neither. He shuffled the cards again, with a quick and expert bridge to settle the deck back together, and then he turned away from Mitch without speaking and dealt another set of hands to the empty coffee table.

Mitch bit at the inside of his cheek. That had been stupid, and he knew it. They were going to be stuck in here together for at least another day—god, let it not be more than another day, but the point was: they were both already on edge. Letting himself snap at Joey like that wasn't helping.

He stared at the tight line of Joey's shoulders, and couldn't make himself apologize. As if it hadn't been true. As if he were under any obligation to be _kind_ to Joey Morolto.

He set the book down carefully next to him on the sofa, and stood up, and walked to the kitchen—which put a corner, a length of wall, between him and Joey, and somehow that made it a lot easier to breathe. Joey just took up so much _space_ sometimes, and Mitch had no idea why.

There were glasses in the cabinets, the house pre-stocked with dishes, and Mitch took one and filled it right at the sink, and drank. He just had to try to be rational about this, that was all. In a room that held him and Joey Morolto, he was the reasonable, responsible one—which was a hell of a thought, considering the messes he kept getting himself into, but that didn't make it untrue. He was the reasonable, responsible one, and if they were going to make it through this without killing each other, he was going to have to act like it.

He let himself hide in the kitchen for a little while longer, until he'd drained the glass at last. And then he went back out into the lounge, and when he sat down on the couch again, he left _Sizzling Sixteen_ where it was.

Joey didn't look up. But even that, coming from him, felt deliberate. You didn't just not get noticed by Joey Morolto, no; you got _ignored_.

"I don't like it," Mitch said.

Joey's mouth tightened a little, and he flicked Mitch a glance without moving his head. "What?"

"The book," Mitch clarified. "I don't like it."

"Well, sure," Joey said. "A bestselling airport paperback, for a man of your discriminating tastes? Honestly, I don't know what you were thinking."

And it came out snide, a little condescending; but Joey's shoulders relaxed, too, and he'd started smiling again, and this time that smile didn't look half so much like the blade of a knife.

"Deal you in?"

Mitch glanced at the coffee table, the hands set out with nobody to hold them. "Poker? Seriously? How do you even pretend to play poker against yourself?"

"Oh, Mitch," Joey murmured, shaking his head. "For a man whose career depends on his ability to read a jury, sometimes I don't think you understand people very well." He paused, still looking at Mitch; and a shadow of the smile was still there, but there was something in his eyes that Mitch couldn't quite name when he said, "I got a good poker face. It all works out just fine as long as I keep an eye on me so I don't stack the deck."

Mitch looked at the cards on the coffee table, and at the deck in Joey's hand, and in a strange way, it almost made sense. Depending on how you thought about it, Joey was—Joey was always playing poker, one way or another. Mitch had already thought sometimes that talking to Joey was like being dared to call a bluff, over and over; but sitting here like this, alone in a quiet house, and _still_ playing it against himself, again and again—

It was the first time it had ever occurred to Mitch that now and then maybe Joey also struggled not to fold.

"Gin rummy," he said aloud.

Joey blinked at him. "Excuse me?"

"I'd rather play gin rummy," Mitch said.

It was only half true—jesus, he wasn't even sure he remembered the rules—but Joey's mouth had already started to kind of tug up disbelievingly at one corner, and it was too late to take it back anyway. "Gin rummy," Joey repeated. "Well. If you insist," and he gathered up the poker hands with one quick sweep of his fingers and started shuffling again.

 

 

Joey had said one game, but Mitch didn't hold him to it. To be honest, it felt good to have something to concentrate on, even something as trivial as rearranging cards and counting up deadwood, and they'd played three hands, six, ten, before Mitch even started to wonder how long they could keep this up.

They didn't talk, really. Just drew, and discarded, and knocked now and then. Mitch found himself looking at Joey's face almost as often as at his own cards—because Joey did have a decent poker face, when he tried, but he wasn't trying over gin rummy; and when he wasn't trying, it was—he was interesting to watch. His eyes, his mouth, were surprisingly expressive, and the least narrowing or tightening around the corners of either one stood out to Mitch clearer and clearer the longer he spent looking for them.

He'd never had any reason to look at Joey this long before. The closest he'd come was probably talking to Patrick, shut up in that drab little room, on the same side of the table as Joey.

But eventually they'd pretty much exhausted the entertainment value of gin rummy. Mitch didn't want to go back to the damn book. It turned out Joey knew every card game Mitch had ever heard of and then some, and somehow they ended up just sitting there, Mitch on the sofa with his head tipped back, Joey in the club chair shuffling endlessly, while Joey idly listed out all the ones he knew.

"—and then there's Marjapussi—"

"Oh, come on," Mitch said, angling a disbelieving eyeroll toward the ceiling.

"I'm serious!" Joey protested. "It's real. That's what it's called. It's Swedish or something, I don't know."

"I'm surprised you were allowed to learn anything but nice Italian games," Mitch muttered.

"Oh, I know lots of nice Italian games," Joey said, "but somehow I doubt you want to play them with me."

He laughed a little, and his voice had gotten sort of low, teasing; and for some reason Mitch found himself glancing over. He met Joey's eyes when he did, because Joey was already looking right back at him, sharp and steady, and for a second Mitch couldn't remember what they'd been talking about for the life of him, the only thought in his head a dim wish that they could open a window in here.

Because it was—it had gotten warm, that was all.

"Of course," Joey added after a moment, without looking away, "that's hardly appropriate, given it's the Russian mob who's trying to kill us." He glanced away to shuffle again, even though Mitch knew by now that Joey didn't need to look at his hands to shuffle cards; and suddenly something passed across his face, the corner of his mouth twisting abruptly. "I'd suggest Russian roulette, but the marshals took my gun off me before they shut us in here."

"You actually let Louis disarm you?" Mitch said, raising an eyebrow.

And he'd meant it as a joke, because surely even Joey Morolto didn't expect to be able to walk into a U.S. Marshals' safehouse with a handgun. But Joey cut him a quick sideways glance and said evenly, "Nah. I still got a knife."

Mitch blinked, spent about half a second wondering whether Joey was bullshitting him—or if he wasn't, where the hell he was keeping a knife that Louis wouldn't have checked—and then decided he didn't want to know.

"You ever played Russian roulette against anybody?" Joey was saying idly, turning the cards around in his hands.

"Against anybody," Mitch repeated. "And here I always thought of it as a variant on solitaire."

And that made Joey look at him again—look at him again, and reach out to set the cards down in a neat stack in the middle of the coffee table. "Lots of people make that mistake," Joey said quietly. "It's understandable." He stood and stepped around the coffee table, and some distant alarm went off in the back of Mitch's head, but by the time it had, Joey was already over him, leaning down, gripping Mitch's wrist.

"Joey," Mitch said carefully, and he was—he had to be rational, he reminded himself, reasonable, so he didn't yank his hand out of Joey's and he didn't punch Joey in the face.

For a second he thought it was wasted effort, that Joey was about to punch him. He reached up and caught Joey's free arm as it came toward him; and then Joey stopped moving, and they were—they were mirroring each other, almost.

Because Joey hadn't been trying to punch Mitch at all: he was holding his hand with two fingers out, two fingers folded, his thumb up, and those extended fingertips to Mitch's temple. Like a gun—and he'd brought Mitch's hand up to his own head, though Mitch wasn't cooperating, fingers curling slackly, knuckles brushing Joey's hair instead.

"Joey—"

"See?" Joey said, almost soft. "Piece of cake. Then all you have to do is decide: who wins? The guy who lives, or the guy who dies?" He tilted his head, toward Mitch's hand instead of away, and narrowed his eyes. "What do you think, McDeere?"

"Joey," Mitch said flatly, tugging a little on his own hand, trying to push Joey's away from him, but Joey wouldn't give up.

But then he'd never liked to, had he? Not until he'd had the chance to make his point, not unless he had to.

He and Mitch had that in common.

"Or maybe," Joey added, voice dropping lower still, eyes intent on Mitch's face, "we'd each catch a bullet on the same round, same time. Take ourselves down right in front of each other, just that fast. That would be something, huh?"

Mitch stopped trying to get free. He didn't exactly mean to. He just found himself relaxing for a second, distracted—watching Joey's face, like this was another game of poker and Joey might give him a tell if he paid attention. "I don't want to take you down, Joey," he said slowly. "That's never what any of this was about."

"Yeah," Joey said, and then all at once he let go. He let go faster than Mitch, who'd still had one hand around Joey's wrist, and when Joey moved away Mitch's arm was left half-extended, reaching out after him. "Yeah, yeah, right. You just want to settle your account. Get me out of your life for good. I know."

His tone had changed again: breezy, this time, as if it was some other guy who'd just mimed holding a gun to Mitch's head and then talked about pulling the trigger.

And it was ridiculous, it was stupid, but for a moment all Mitch wanted to do was tell him he was wrong. Even though it was—it was supposed to be true.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**THREE WEEKS EARLIER**

"So how are things in Kentucky?"

Abby's sigh came through the phone so clearly Mitch could almost picture her: the way she'd be standing as she held the phone, the hand she'd have braced along the side of her forehead. "Oh, fine. Everything's fine," she said after a moment; and Mitch hadn't really expected any other answer, but he still felt something in his chest loosen just a little in relief.

"Claire?"

"Claire's all right," Abby said, in that measured way she had when she wanted him to understand that "all right" wasn't the same as "good". "She's adjusting. She understands that it's safer here, but she keeps asking why you didn't come with us, or when you're going to get here."

Mitch bit his lip. "What are you telling her?"

"Oh, you know. That the Russian mob is trying to kill you," Abby said blandly, and Mitch was so startled by the joke that he coughed out half a laugh into the phone without meaning to. "I told her you had business to take care of, that you couldn't leave the city just yet. That you wanted to be with us, but it was really, really important."

"I do want to be with you," Mitch said, and then half-wished he hadn't. She knew that, he knew that; it was old news. They'd already talked this to death the week before she had gone, and at this point it was—it was nothing but words, saying it just to say it, because wanting it didn't mean jack if he wasn't going to _do_ it.

And he wasn't. He couldn't.

But Abby'd always been kinder than he deserved, and took mercy on him. "I know," she said quietly. "I know you do."

"And your parents?" Mitch made himself say.

"They're fine, too. And Ray and Tammy. Everybody's all right. I told you, my parents are paying for private security. Nothing's happened—no one's come after us."

"Yet," Mitch said, but he drew in a long slow breath and then let it out again. Karpov had a long reach, of course; but Kentucky couldn't hold much that was of any interest to his operation. And Mitch was still here. There was no reason for Karpov to go to the effort of tracking down Abby and Claire, and if Mitch had anything to say about it, there never would be.

"You say the sweetest things," Abby was telling him dryly, and then she sighed again and moved somehow on the other end of the line—shaking her hair back, maybe. "My mother isn't wild about the security, but she's willing to put up with it for Claire's sake."

"And you?" Mitch prodded.

She was quiet for a moment. "It's better than witness protection," she said at last.

Mitch closed his eyes.

"Just—that we can be here, with my parents. Somewhere Claire already knows, somewhere she likes. Where other people call me by my real name. I wish we didn't have to do this at all—"

"I know," Mitch said. "Abby—I'm sorry."

He thought maybe he heard her breath hitch. Or maybe it was just the phone, the connection, a little hiss of static.

"I've been using my maiden name. Just for now," she added, rushed and a little awkward, as if that had sounded more final out loud than she'd intended. "While we're here, I just—I thought it made sense. To make us harder to find, and—"

"And to explain why you're there without me," Mitch said. "So your parents' friends will assume we've separated."

Assume. As if they were wrong.

It should have hurt to think that. But sitting there in the dimness of his empty house, phone cool and smooth and impersonal against his cheek, Mitch just felt sort of tired.

They'd been apart before, him and Abby. Earlier this year, even. They'd been away from each other, sometimes even on different continents. But somehow all those other times hadn't made them _feel_ separated. And this time—

This time, they did.

Mitch had been trying to decide why, and he hadn't settled on an answer. Somehow it was just—he was still right in the middle of this mess with the Russians, with the mob and the FBI and Joey. And Abby was somewhere so _different_ from that, staying in Kentucky with her parents, with Claire, and Ray and Tammy on a makeshift honeymoon to look after them. She wasn't thinking about Patrick Walker for at least ten hours a day anymore, and she wasn't trying to guess whether anyone who came around a corner toward her suddenly was a Russian with a gun.

He wondered, sometimes, whether this was what it had been like for her with Noble, after she'd been waterboarded, after she'd killed a man—having had this terrifying, life-altering experience she couldn't forget, and Mitch with absolutely no idea. He still remembered what it had been like to sit in that courtroom and hear her testify, that sudden sinking sense of awareness that there was a distance between them that he hadn't known about and couldn't have crossed on his own. That he might so easily never even have realized he needed to try.

He hadn't wanted to know what it was like to be on the other side of that distance.

But then he hadn't wanted a lot of things to happen.

"Mitch. Mitch—"

"Sorry," he said belatedly. "Sorry, I was—I was just thinking."

"About how the Russian mob's trying to kill you," Abby said, "or do you have a new problem I don't know about?"

"Nah, it's pretty much just the Russian mob thing," Mitch said, deliberately light, and was rewarded with a half-amused huff of breath over the phone. He paused, and then admitted, "It's gotten complicated."

"It was already complicated, Mitch."

"Right," Mitch said, "but it's—it's gotten more complicated." He swallowed. "Joey killed Kurylenko."

"He did _what_?"

Mitch shook his head. "He was—the tension was getting worse. The FBI was already pissed at us—"

"Right," Abby said, "because you put Belyakova on the stand, you told me."

"They made it clear we couldn't have Kurylenko," Mitch said, arguing the point automatically, reflexively, even though he knew Abby already agreed with him. "Belyakova knew him, she'd seen him with Karpov's guys, and she was ready to talk."

"And I'm sure the FBI was thrilled about that."

"Yeah, well." Mitch rubbed his eyes. "It's all-out war, now. Karpov wasn't happy with Kurylenko, at least according to Joey's guys, but he's not happy to have lost him, either."

"So he wants Joey's head on a stick," Abby concluded.

"He wants Joey's head on a stick," Mitch agreed. "Louis thinks this goes even deeper than he realized, that it's possible some agents of the FBI have been directly facilitating Karpov's operations. Everything's escalating, and—" He stopped, biting his tongue like that would hold the words in. But Abby wasn't stupid. Not saying it wouldn't make it not true. "And I don't know where it's going to end, or when. Kentucky's the safest place for you right now. All four of you."

It felt like giving up, to admit it. To agree, even tacitly, that this was—that it had to be—the new normal for them, and that there was nothing he could do about it.

And there was nothing Mitch hated more than feeling like he'd given up.

Abby had fallen silent on the other end of the line. They stayed like that for a long moment, nothing either of them could say about it that the other didn't already know, but not quite willing to let go.

And then Abby said, gently, evenly, "I love you. Always. Okay?"

"Yeah," Mitch said. "You too. Tell Claire that I—that I'm sorry, and I love her, too. Let Ray know I'm okay—"

"And Tammy, too," Abby promised. "I will."

They managed a few more mild expressions of care and concern, and wished each other good night—Mitch almost wanted to laugh, hearing himself say something so blandly ordinary at the end of a conversation like that.

And then he hung up. He hung up; he set the phone down on the kitchen table and put his head in his hands. And he wondered what it said about him that even now, even having just carefully laid what was left of his marriage to rest over this—if he'd known this was coming, all the way back when he first realized there was a chance Patrick Walker actually had been framed, he still couldn't say for sure that he would have walked away.

Because that would have been giving up, too. And Mitch had never been any good at that, not until there was no other choice left.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Joey sat down and picked up the deck again. He thumbed the cards into a fan, and then snapped that fan shut with a quick motion of his fingers. He didn't say anything, and Mitch was struck with a weird urge to ask him something, anything; to get him talking again, even if it was just about Scandinavian card games.

"Joey," he said finally, and Joey looked up with half a sneer already twisting his mouth, and then there was a knock at the door.

Mitch tensed, startled, and felt his heart start to pound. No one but Louis Coleman was supposed to know where they were; and Louis would have called first.

But Joey was already standing, moving toward the door.

"Joey—"

"Relax, it's fine," Joey said over his shoulder, and Mitch stared a second too long, and had only made it halfway up off the couch before Joey was already twisting the lock, slinging the chain free, and opening the door.

"Everything you asked for, boss," said the man outside—one of Joey's guys, Mitch realized belatedly.

And Joey took a brown paper bag out of the man's hands, thanked him in that overly-solicitous and vaguely threatening mob-boss way he had, and then closed the door and turned around. He raised his eyebrows and grinned at Mitch, a challenge: he didn't expect Mitch to be impressed or pleased. He knew it was stupid, letting anyone— _anyone_ , even whoever that guy was—know where they were, and he'd done it anyway, and he wanted Mitch to know that he knew what Mitch would think of it and he didn't give a damn.

And the worst part was, Mitch thought, that even being well aware of all that, Mitch was suddenly itching to yell at him anyway.

"What the hell is that?"

"Oh, take your pick," Joey said, and his breezy tone said the same thing as the look on his face, that he was daring Mitch to get pissed off about it. He reached into the brown bag with one hand, and pulled out a bottle, examining it and making a considering face, and then peering in past it. "Amaretto, limoncello, sambuca, rosolio. Oh, Campari, very nice—"

Mitch stared at him. "You gave away our safehouse location," he said slowly, "so you could have somebody bring you some booze?"

"Mitch, Mitch, Mitch," Joey murmured, low, deceptively sweet. "Always so judgmental. Relax, will you? Have a goddamn drink."

Mitch felt his jaw tighten. He was going to say no, he told himself. He was going to say it and he was going to say it calmly, evenly. He wasn't going to give Joey a reaction to work with; he wasn't going to act upset or surprised or angry. Because he shouldn't be. Joey always did this. Every time Mitch started to think that there was a chance that they were—that they could talk to each other, understand each other, or at least come to terms one way or another, Joey was right there to prove him wrong. Pointedly, even deliberately, as if he'd noticed the possibility, too, and wanted to make sure to snuff it out.

But god, Mitch was frustrated. He was frustrated and tired and sick of this damn house, he was sick of its drawn blinds; he was sick of being trapped in here with nobody but Joey, and all at once he wanted that drink more than anything.

So he didn't say no. He crossed the entryway instead, still staring flatly at Joey, and he stuck his hand in the goddamn bag and came out with a brilliant yellow bottle of Galliano.

Joey's satisfied smile was a taunt all by itself. Mitch ignored it and cracked the seal with a twist of his hands, and in Mitch's experience Galliano wasn't really meant to be drunk straight like this, but he set the lip to his mouth and tipped his head back anyway.

Because it was still alcohol, and the burn of that first generous swallow going down, even with a liqueur that vanilla-sweet, was a relief.

 

 

 

**PART TWO:**

**call.**  
To match the amount of the bet made by the preceding player on their turn.

 

"You know, I hate you."

Mitch slammed back a swallow of something red—maybe the Campari—with determination. The safehouse was stocked, yeah, but not with shot glasses, and it was hard to achieve the same effect with a couple fingers of Italian liquor in the bottom of a regular sixteen-ounce water glass.

He and Joey were giving it a hell of a good try, though.

"I've hated you forever," Joey elaborated idly, tilting his head back and finishing off his own drink. He'd been sticking mostly to the limoncello, Mitch was pretty sure.

"That's a neat trick," Mitch countered, "considering you didn't even know I existed until you were fifteen."

"You think I couldn't fit an infinity of hating you into ten years?" Joey demanded. "Huh? You doubting my efficiency?"

"Oh, god forbid," Mitch said, holding up a hand, palm-out, conciliatory.

"I really, really hated you," Joey repeated. He fumbled for a fresh bottle, and poured himself a new drink with the deliberate care of the mildly hammered. "When I couldn't sleep, I used to think about you," he added, and for a second Mitch was—he could really feel the alcohol hitting him, maybe, the heat in his face and the buzz under his skin.

"You did," he heard himself say, inane.

"Yep," Joey said, oblivious, unselfconscious. "Yeah. I'd lie there and I'd imagine what it was like for you in witness protection. Feds looking out for you, taking care of you. Anonymous," he added, more quietly. "Safe. Living some—some totally normal life where you didn't ever have to think about my father or the mob ever again."

Mitch looked at him, and bit his lip.

He wanted to say something, suddenly. Maybe about how it hadn't been like that at all. About how much it had chafed, being shoved into other people's shoes, these pre-prepared lives that hadn't fit them at all; how much it had suffocated all three of them, even Claire. That Mitch had hardly stopped thinking about the mob for five minutes—always helplessly aware of why they had to live like that, why that had been happening; that it was because of him and what he had done, and that there was nothing he could do to fix it.

Strange, that he wanted Joey to know he hadn't felt safe or normal, that he wanted Joey to know he hadn't been happy. Like he could offer up all the ways he'd fucked up his life, his family, as proof he hadn't gotten off scot-free after all.

"Right after they put my father away," Joey was saying, "or when he died. Once I realized what that meant, what I was going to have to do—yeah, I hated you. But those nights, man. Those nights I think I hated you most of all."

Mitch rubbed at his mouth, feeling suddenly like he was too drunk for this. Or—or maybe just the right amount of drunk, if he could figure out what to say, how to say it.

"I hate you, too," he said.

Joey snorted, half a laugh through his nose, and poured himself more limoncello; whatever brand it was he'd had that guy bring, the stuff was even sweeter than the Galliano, but he didn't seem to care. "Oh, yeah?" he said. "And what did I do to you, Mitch?"

He didn't ask like he couldn't think of an answer—he asked like he already knew, like he just wanted the satisfaction of hearing Mitch say it.

"You ruined my life, you bastard," Mitch said, obliging. He looked down into his glass, the last little crescent of liquor at the bottom; he looked into the weird pinched reflection of his own eyes down there, and he repeated it: "You ruined my life."

"Aw," Joey murmured, tipping back the limoncello. "Aw, what a shame. Poor little Mitch McDeere."

Mitch set the glass down and squeezed his eyes shut. "I was just trying to do the right thing," he said, and he wasn't even really saying it to Joey. He just wanted to point it out, somehow, like maybe if he made his case—maybe if he introduced some reasonable doubt—the universe would agree that his life had gone wrong somewhere, that he hadn't deserved to end up getting drunk in a safehouse with Joey Morolto.

That was the thing he'd always loved about the courtroom, all along. That if he just found out what the truth was, he could figure out how to make people care about it. He could make it matter, even if it was only enough to change one person's life.

"I figured out what was going on at Bendini, Lambert & Locke. I realized what they were doing, and I knew it was wrong. I had to make a choice about what kind of lawyer I was, about who I was going to be, and I made it. I just—" He stopped, bit his lip and shook his head. "I thought that after that it would be done. That I'd make that choice and make it once. I didn't know I was going to have keep doing it over and over, _defending_ it over and over. I didn't know it was going to get so goddamn hard. And then when we finally left WitPro behind, when it started to seem like it had been long enough that I wasn't going to have to worry about anybody hunting me down and trying to kill me—"

"There was Noble," Joey concluded for him smugly. "There was Noble, and there was me, and now there's the Russians." He leaned sideways along the kitchen counter where they were standing to clink his half-full glass mockingly against the empty one Mitch wasn't even holding. "Well, cheers, Mitch. I'd say I'm sorry but you wouldn't believe me, and I wouldn't mean it, because from where I'm standing?" He paused and smiled just a little wider, eyes bright and hard over the edge of his glass as he lifted it to take a sip. "You got exactly what was coming to you."

For an instant, Mitch was frozen. He stood there and he stared at Joey. It wasn't anything he hadn't thought sometimes, late at night—lying awake himself, just like Joey had, in some clean pleasant house that didn't belong to him, after another long day getting called by a name that wasn't his and living somebody else's life. That in a way he'd done this to himself. That if he'd just let it go, just kept his head down and his mouth shut—

He couldn't have. He _couldn't_ have. But didn't that make it his fault?

He'd never said it out loud. He and Abby had talked around it; he'd never asked her outright whether she blamed him, because he didn't know whether he could have made himself stand there and listen to the answer.

And that only made it all the more unbearable to have Joey Morolto—Joey goddamn Morolto—looking at him like that, smiling, speaking the words aloud.

"Fuck you," Mitch heard himself say, softly, evenly; and then suddenly he was—he didn't even feel like he'd decided to, he just had already begun to move. He moved, knocked that half-full glass out of Joey's hand and didn't care where it landed, and by the time it shattered with a splash of limoncello against the kitchen tile they were already a stride away from it, two, Mitch's hands fisting themselves in Joey's shirt. Joey struck the wall a second later, breath knocked out of him in an audible rush by the impact, and Mitch should have let him go but didn't—pinned him there instead, pressing his knuckles into Joey's collarbones hard enough that it occurred to him dimly that he might leave a bruise.

Good, he thought.

"What do you want to hear, huh, Mitch?" Joey was saying. He looked relaxed, comfortable, expression bland and sardonic, as though he'd meant for Mitch to shove him against the wall all along—but his hands had come up to grip Mitch's wrists, fingers tense, knuckles pale. "You want me to tell you you did the right thing? You had no choice? You had a choice and you made it. This, right now—you've got a way out." He tilted his head a little, but his eyes—Mitch hated his eyes, the bright relentless sharpness of them; the way they were on Mitch all the time, the way Joey _watched_ him, like he was always waiting to see what Mitch would do, whether—

Whether Mitch would fold first.

"You've got a way out," Joey said again. "You must have thought of it, smart guy like you. You know how easy it would be.

"Kill me. That's all it would take. Kill me. Pack me up in a suitcase, just like Charlotte Walker. Stuff me in the trunk of someone else's car and tell the Russians where I am. They'll take care of it. Nobody would ever even know it was you—"

" _No_ ," Mitch said, and shoved at Joey again, pressed him back so the blades of his shoulders had to be digging into the plaster a little. "That might be _your_ idea of a solution, but it isn't mine—"

"Why the hell not?" Joey said, each word pricking and precise, goading. "Why the hell not? It would solve every single one of your fucking problems. Wouldn't it, Mitch?" He let his head tip back against the wall and huffed out a laugh that didn't sound amused at all. "Mine too, for that matter. There's nobody around to stop you. Just you and me. Why not?"

And god, Mitch found himself thinking, why did Joey always have to be like this? Why did he always have to push so hard? What was it he was trying to get Mitch to say? That he'd do it if he could, that he wanted Joey dead after all; or—

Or that he didn't? That he wouldn't, even if he could. Mitch still remembered the driveby, the gleam of sunlight off that motorcycle and the abrupt clattering spray of bullets—the way Joey had looked at him afterward, startled and assessing and maybe even a little bit grateful.

The way he had grabbed Joey, the sudden warmth and solidity of Joey against Mitch's hand as Mitch had pushed him down. The way Joey had felt under him, pressed against the pavement—

Mitch squeezed his eyes shut and bit the inside of his cheek, hard. Jesus, what a ridiculous thing to be thinking about. He must be drunker than he'd realized.

"Because I won't," he said again, aloud, and it was as much him reminding himself what they were talking about, what was important here, as it was the answer to Joey's question. "I _won't_. I told you, there are lines. There are things I don't want to do, people I don't want to be. I'm not going to kill you because it'll solve some _problems_. Jesus. I'm not that guy. I'm not ever going to be that guy."

He stopped and shook his head, and then something passed across Joey's face that made Mitch wish belatedly that he'd found another way to say it. Because he'd been thinking of that conversation between the two of them, _everything I never wanted to be_ —and Joey'd probably been thinking of it, too. Mitch had stuck it out: he hadn't let BL&L turn him into someone he didn't want to be, and he hadn't let WitPro do it either; he hadn't let Kinross & Clark do it, and he hadn't let Noble do it, and he still hadn't quite let Joey, for all that he'd come a lot closer to the line than he was comfortable with.

But Joey had. Joey'd done it to himself, even—on purpose, deliberate, knowing exactly what was expected of him, because if he hadn't he'd probably be dead already. And now, in a weird backwards way, Mitch was rubbing his face in it.

"Joey," Mitch started to say, even though he had no idea what was going to come after it—but a second later it didn't matter.

Because Joey sneered at him, fingers tightening on Mitch's wrists like he was about to shove Mitch away, and jesus, he made it hard to feel sorry for him. They weren't—they weren't _done_ , Mitch thought frustratedly, and he tightened his own grip on Joey's shirt and shoved him again, pushed him back a fraction harder into the wall.

Just a little. Just enough to tell him he wasn't going anywhere until Mitch let him. That was all Mitch wanted to do.

Except he'd taken a half-step doing it, for the leverage and for emphasis. And suddenly, standing there with Joey pinned under his hands, it occurred to Mitch as if from a distance that they were—they were really close together.

Joey's breath had hitched, the barest catch in his throat, when Mitch pushed him. Mitch was taller, just a little; standing like this, Joey had to look up at him to meet his eyes, chin tipped up, the line of his throat temporarily exposed.

Mitch didn't even realize he'd reached up to touch it until he already had.

And Joey's eyes narrowed. He wet his lips and Mitch watched him do it—looked right at Joey's mouth and didn't stop, and felt his heart start to pound.

Jesus. Jesus, what the fuck was he doing?

"Joey," he said again, but it was already too late. Joey had moved, and this time it wasn't to get away or to push Mitch off him, but—but his thigh. His thigh, pressing forward slowly and deliberately between Mitch's.

"But you are _this_ guy, huh?" Joey was murmuring. "Got something you need to take care of, Mitch?"

Mitch jerked backwards, except that didn't help at all: he still had one hand wound into Joey's shirt, and Joey had him by the wrists anyway; and all the movement did was tighten his slacks for a second—was make him hopelessly, relentlessly aware that he was hard. He was hard and Joey knew it, had pressed up against Mitch's cock like that on purpose, and jesus, this was ridiculous. They couldn't do this.

They couldn't do this, he told himself again, and then Joey had moved again, one hand at Mitch's waistband—at his belt, except the backs of Joey's knuckles brushed Mitch's cock and Mitch jerked inward toward the sensation before he could stop himself.

"This somebody you want to be?" Joey was saying, low and warmly amused, mocking. "This on the right side of your fucking lines? Well, who'd have thought—"

Mitch gritted his teeth. "Shut up, Joey," he bit out, and Joey's mouth twisted, his eyes flat: triumphant, bitter, unsurprised. He'd caught Mitch's belt, was holding Mitch close by it, but hadn't undone it, and for someone as drunk as he should have been, the line of his shoulders was tight, tense, against the wall.

He was ready to fight some more. Waiting for it—expecting it.

Well, fuck that, Mitch thought slowly. Fuck that.

And in a way it was weirdly freeing, to look at Joey's face and know what he thought Mitch was going to do, and not do it. Maybe this was what Joey got out of it, always turning left when Mitch had been planning on right, doing u-turns on one-way streets. Maybe this was the feeling Joey liked to chase: because it made no sense at all, but there was something almost exhilarating, bright-hot and breathlessly satisfying, about crowding Joey in tighter against the wall. About leaning into Joey, and rubbing a thumb up against the prickle of stubble along Joey's jaw, letting his other hand flatten so he wasn't gripping Joey's shirt but just pinning him by the chest—watching that flat stare flicker, Joey's eyes widening.

Joey's breath was coming harder now, quicker; Mitch could feel it, and there was something satisfying about that, too, about having such a visible effect on Joey when Joey was usually done up so tight, controlling himself so ruthlessly.

It had never scared Mitch the way it should have, when Joey lost his temper. In retrospect, Mitch probably should have spared some thought as to exactly why that was a little bit sooner.

"And which side of your lines are we on?" Mitch said aloud, low, and moved against Joey—just a little. Just enough to trap Joey's hand between them and press their hips flush for a second, and Christ, Joey was hard, too. Getting there, at least, and the part of Mitch that still couldn't fucking believe he was even considering this was steadily getting drowned out by how _good_ it felt, how hopelessly fucking spectacular it was to stand like this and feel Joey against him, all that heat and tension and barely-leashed intensity, right here under his hands.

He'd been hard already. But all at once it wasn't just sensation, wasn't just happening to him. He _wanted_ it.

A year ago, he'd have called this impossible. All of this: impossible that he'd have agreed to go into protection again, even temporarily; impossible that he'd have done it without Abby, and more impossible still that he'd have done it _with_ Joey Morolto. Impossible, that Joey would be standing here staring at Mitch with a hand on Mitch's belt, and that Mitch wouldn't be able to stop looking at his mouth—

But right that second, it didn't seem impossible at all. Right that second, suddenly, it seemed inevitable, and Mitch watched his own fingers work open the top button of Joey's shirt and couldn't imagine trying to stop them.

 

 

It wasn't the first time Mitch had gotten a little tipsy and had ill-advised sex.

And that should have been all it was. Up against a wall, jerking each other's shirts open, yanking belts aside, shoving each other's pants down just far enough to grope unsteadily for each other's cocks—and of course with Joey it took on an air of competition, Joey's every movement posing a tacit dare: _will you let me do this? What about this? Will you do it to me, or are you chicken? Huh?_

It wasn't smooth, and it wasn't nice. Joey went on the offensive the second Mitch gave him an opening, wrapping his hand around Mitch's cock, grip right on the edge of too tight—and dry, not even bothering to swipe at the leaking head a little to make it easier, but the friction felt right, punishing. Because they weren't supposed to be doing this, they—Mitch shouldn't have been letting him, and that spark of pain was exactly what he deserved for being so stupid.

Jesus, that felt good.

Mitch gripped the back of Joey's neck, dug his fingers into Joey's hair, and heard himself make a harsh noise in his throat. "Oh, fuck," he said. "Fuck," and Joey laughed a little against Mitch's jaw and only stroked him harder.

"Yeah? You like that, Mitch? That working for you?"

"Fuck you," Mitch said, and that was where it started to go a little sideways on him.

All Joey did was laugh again, low. And then he spread his thighs a little wider, but it was just to fit them better around and between Mitch's: to get that critical inch closer, open his hand far enough to grip them both at once, and fuck, that was hot. But Joey wasn't trying to—he didn't mean anything else by it.

It was just that Mitch had the image in his head, suddenly, of Joey's thighs pressed apart wider still. Of Mitch between them for real, not just shoved up against each other like this but Joey under him, held open for him, _letting_ him. Tense, probably, because god knew Joey wouldn't roll over easily—or would he? Even if he wanted it, he wouldn't ask for it, and it was easy to imagine that he'd try to goad Mitch into it instead. Mouth off, hurl insults, until Mitch just grabbed him and turned him over and _did_ it, and the only way to tell he'd liked it would be if he didn't shoot Mitch in the head afterward.

But maybe he'd do that thing he did sometimes; get breezy about it, casual. _Oh, you want to fuck me, huh? That bad? Yeah, okay, I could go for it. As long as you make it worth my while. You think you can make it worth my while, Mitch? You think you can do it so good I'll want it? So good I'll ask you for it, beg you—_

Jesus, Mitch thought, and squeezed his eyes shut, shuddering. And when he got it together enough to reach between them himself, he didn't try to help Joey. He got his hand on Joey's hip instead, worked Joey's slacks down an inch at a time even as he was still fucking helplessly into Joey's grip, panting against Joey's cheek, until at last he'd bared Joey's ass.

Lucky, really, that Joey was working them both with such dedication; the way he was thrusting against Mitch lifted his hips away from the wall even with his back still pressed to it. Made things easier.

Joey startled a little when Mitch touched him, and the rhythm of those steady harsh strokes faltered—for a second that in itself was almost too much, that Joey's grip had eased like that, that in its absence Mitch was suddenly hyperaware of the simple hot weight of Joey's cock against his.

And then Mitch pushed in just a little with one fingertip, and Joey jerked in his arms and made a weird quiet sound. "Mitch—"

"You want me to stop?" Mitch asked him, and somehow it came out sounding the way Joey might have said it. Somehow it came out sounding like a challenge.

Joey didn't answer. Mitch leaned back a bit, just enough to see Joey bite his lip; and then Joey's eyes flicked up and met his and the teeth, the hesitation, were both gone. He gave Mitch a flat stare, and went the casual route after all: "Hey, knock yourself out. That gets you going, huh?"

But he couldn't quite keep his voice steady, and when his hand started moving again it wasn't steady either. Mitch found himself staring helplessly at Joey's face, his mouth, and it was—suddenly it _felt_ like a challenge. Like it would be getting one over on Joey somehow if Mitch managed to make it good.

So when he started to really work his fingers into Joey, he did it slowly. Slower than he'd planned, slower than he thought either of them had been expecting. Not far, not deep, because there wasn't anything to ease the way; but he tried to make up for it with thoroughness, one knuckle and then two and then one again, teasing and testing. Joey got distracted enough that Mitch had to wrap a hand around his in between them, too, and by the end Joey was gasping and swearing in Italian, rolling his hips helplessly, caught suspended between Mitch's fingers in his ass and how bad he wanted to fuck up through the circle of their tangled hands, biting his lips and screwing his eyes shut.

And it was so goddamn satisfying to do that, make Joey come apart like that, just because he wanted what Mitch was giving him so badly—Mitch had known Joey was close, sure, but his own orgasm took him almost by surprise, the white-hot crescendo hitting him before he was ready for it. He hung onto Joey and shivered his way through it, and then they both kind of crumpled a little, faltering, sliding haltingly down the wall; and Mitch should have moved away right then, but didn't. He just—he just wanted to catch his breath for a minute. Then he'd push Joey away, and go clean himself up, and start trying to figure out how to act like this had never happened.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**TWO WEEKS EARLIER**

"I just want to make sure you're prepared for this."

"I know the drill, Louis," Mitch said.

"Yeah, well, you're not the only one whose life is at risk here," Joey said next to him, leaning back in his chair and linking his hands behind his head. "Come on, Mitch, show a little consideration, huh?"

Mitch pressed his mouth into a tight flat line and didn't look over, keeping his gaze pointedly on Louis.

"We might not need to do this at all," Louis said calmly, as though Joey hadn't spoken—though the little twitch at the corner of his mouth meant he'd heard just fine, Mitch thought, and was totally enjoying having someone in the room who annoyed Mitch even more than Mitch's bullheadedness had ever annoyed Louis. "But given the situation, you need to be ready to enter protective custody at any time, however temporarily."

He stopped, and not like he was done but like he was hesitating a little. That usually wasn't good, with Louis.

"What is it?" Mitch said. "Louis—"

"I have some concerns," Louis said, clearly picking his words carefully, "about potential security issues within the Marshals' Office itself. Mr. Morolto in particular doesn't have a lot of friends among the US Marshals Service—"

"But I'm such a friendly guy," Joey murmured, tone suggesting this lack was both baffling and deeply painful to him.

"—and given the specifics of this case, everything is just that much more complicated than usual." Louis paused again and cleared his throat. "I'm working on it. If I can narrow down what I'm hearing and nail a specific lead, we'll only need to secure you for a couple of days."

"Or," Mitch said leadingly.

But Louis wasn't the one who answered him.

"Or," Joey intoned, "we'll be bait."

Mitch couldn't help but glance over at him: he was still leaning back in his seat, every line of his body thoroughly casual and comfortable—but he was watching Louis with narrowed eyes, an unamused smile, and the look on his face was grim and knowing.

"Won't we, Louis?" Joey added, almost softly.

And Louis stared back at him for a moment, mouth flat, and then looked at Mitch, and that look wasn't a "no".

"We'll take every possible precaution," Louis said, which wasn't a "no" either. "But I told you I wasn't sure how deep this went. I knew we needed to worry about the FBI, but now—" He cut himself off and shook his head, helpless. "It might be our best option. The Russians are getting information about our investigation from somewhere, and it's not the FBI. I wish I could guarantee you it wasn't coming from us, I really do. But I can't."

Mitch drew a long slow breath and then let it out. "So you're saying the only choice we have is to trust our lives to somebody who might be in Karpov's pocket, and see what happens next?"

"No," Louis said, and then conceded, "I'm saying—I'm saying that depending on what I find out, it could be."

"Well! That's just fantastic, isn't it?" Joey said. "And here I thought we were crucial to this case you're building. _Essential_ , even. They change the definition of that word when I wasn't looking?"

"You're essential to the case because you were able to identify both an FBI agent and several new players working for Karpov," Louis said flatly. "Because you happened to see them when you went looking for Kurylenko and, oh, right—murdered him in front of them."

Joey's expression didn't change, that cold little smile not faltering for a second. "It was self-defense," he said.

"Of course it was," Louis said, unmoved. "Be that as it may, for some reason it's been a little difficult to convince anyone in this office to care whether Karpov manages to take you out. Luckily for you, the circumstances of this case have turned you and Mitch into something of a package deal."

"Luckily for me," Joey repeated, and finally unlinked his hands from behind his head—the better to lean over and sling an arm around Mitch's shoulders. "Ain't that the truth."

It took a supreme effort of will for Mitch not to shrug him off. "Yeah," Mitch said, acidly. "Lucky you."

 

 

He did his best to keep a lid on all his worst impulses for the rest of the meeting. He reminded himself that it was Louis, that if they could trust anybody it was him; that Louis was doing the best he could, the best anybody could expect, and hadn't signed on for any of this in the first place—had only gotten caught up in this case at all because of Mitch.

There had always been a few too many people who could say that.

By the time they were done, though, he was thoroughly sick of being reasonable and understanding, and he didn't have a headache but the tightness he could feel in his neck, across his shoulders, promised that he was going to soon.

So it was a relief to step out of Louis's office—and when Joey caught his elbow before he could walk away, for a split second Mitch kind of wanted to punch him.

And the way Joey smiled at him after a moment said Joey could tell.

"Yes, Joey?" Mitch made himself say, though he couldn't quite keep the bite out of his tone.

"Must feel just like old times!" Joey said, amiable, clapping Mitch on the arm. "You, Louis, witness protection. Fun stuff, huh?"

"Yeah," Mitch said. "I can't wait."

Joey grinned at him sunnily. "See, I thought so," he said. "I look at you, and I think to myself: yeah, there's a guy who really, really loves being shut up in a room doing nothing while his life's in danger."

It should have pissed Mitch off. But instead—he didn't even know. He was just tired enough, maybe; and Joey's voice, his tone, was just mild enough, his eyes steady on Mitch's face, evaluating. And his hand—he hadn't moved his hand. Abby and Claire, Ray, Tammy, had already been gone for weeks. Not a lot of people touched Mitch like this, easy and absent, casual.

So Mitch found himself leaning against the wall outside Louis's office instead, rubbing his face with one hand, and saying, "Well, when you put it like that, who could resist?"

"Not me," Joey agreed. He huffed out a breath, half a laugh, and let go of Mitch—but only to lean against the wall next to him so they were shoulder-to-shoulder, bumping up close.

"Honestly?" Mitch said. "I never wanted to set foot in Louis's office again."

Joey was quiet for a moment. "Didn't ever think I'd have to," he said at last, wry. "US Marshals, making a federal case—literally—out of looking after Joey Morolto? Ridiculous, am I right?"

"Yeah," Mitch agreed. "Except for the ones who want you dead, anyway."

"Well, sure," Joey said, and laughed. "These days, who doesn't?"

And it wasn't actually funny, but Mitch felt his mouth tugging itself into a slant anyway. Because—well, who didn't? Almost as many people wanted Mitch dead too, right now, but at least he could be pretty sure the US Marshals weren't gunning for him.

"You lead a charmed life," he said aloud, and Joey grinned at him again; and they had no reason to leave together—would probably be safer if they didn't, even—but when they walked the rest of the way down the hall, they stayed pretty much in step, and when the elevator arrived and Joey got in, Mitch got in it with him instead of pointedly taking the stairs.

Not that it mattered. They weren't friends. All they had to do was survive this and get back to work before the continuance Patrick's judge had granted ran out. Then this would all be over, and Mitch would never have to so much as hear Joey Morolto's name again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Mitch woke slowly, gradually. At first he was just aware that he was warm; and then that there was dim light somewhere not too far away. And then, a bit at a time, his body filtered back to him: he wasn't lying down, but seated, leaning against something with his head tipped sideways. One of his shoulders ached a little, and below that his arm was asleep. His legs were sore, stiff; they'd been in an odd position for too long. And he was—his pants were—

He stiffened and blinked his eyes belatedly open, reaching clumsily to cover himself—closing the barn door with the horse already in the next county. He fumbled to zip himself up, and the sound of his wide-open fly finally closing was impossibly loud in the quiet.

And he was just lucky he hadn't moved enough to jostle Joey awake. That was why he'd been warm, even with the tile floor: because he was still next to Joey, their thighs pressed together. Joey hadn't even pulled his pants back up properly before he'd dozed off against Mitch; and then Mitch realized that he'd noticed this because he was—he was looking, staring at the half-hidden curve of Joey's pale ass where the open waistband of Joey's slacks was shoved down off it, and Jesus Christ, he needed to get a grip.

He squeezed his eyes shut and stayed where he was, twisting to press his cheek to the cool plaster of the wall behind him. Reasonable. Responsible. Not that either word could be applied to jerking Joey Morolto off with one hand while fucking him with two fingers of the other, but it was a little late to be worrying about that. He should—he ought to wake Joey up, if he could. They needed to drink some water, shamble at least as far as a piece of furniture so they could sleep for real. Tomorrow they could scream at each other, or ignore each other, or pretend they'd never touched each other at all. But at the absolute least—

At the absolute least, he shouldn't just leave Joey here on the floor. He couldn't.

Mitch braced himself and then reached over, gripped Joey's shoulder, and shook. Joey's shirt was still unbuttoned, hanging open, and Mitch was careful to keep his thumb, the tips of his fingers, all on safe ground. He didn't want to touch Joey's face, his bare skin. That was—that clearly only led places that didn't need revisiting.

"Joey. Hey, Joey."

"Mm?" Joey cracked an eye, squinting up at Mitch blearily. He let out a slow breath and closed that eye again, and then made a face and rolled his hips upward, pants still open, obscene—Mitch jerked his gaze away, and then realized Joey had done it so he could hook a thumb in his waistband and tug it back up where it belonged. "Oh, yeah, that's better," he sighed afterward, tipping his head back against the wall, and it turned out his ass being covered wasn't much help after all: Mitch was still fucking staring at him, except it was his throat, the line of his jaw, the incongruously soft dark smudge of his eyelashes against his cheek.

Was that better, or worse?

Mitch bit the inside of his cheek, hard, and carefully levered himself to his feet. His head felt a little unsteady on his neck, but didn't hurt; he was still more drunk than hungover, probably, but the transition from one to the other was a lot closer than it had been before.

Joey was—was tucking himself away, lazy movements of his hands, eyes still closed. Mitch made himself stop looking and turned away, walking back into the kitchen. He couldn't keep himself from hearing Joey's zipper, the muted clink of Joey clumsily refastening his belt, but at least he couldn't _see_ it anymore.

He rubbed his face, scrubbed a hand through his hair, and then went for the sink. A splash of cold water against each cheek, his forehead, and he felt a little steadier, clearer-headed. He grabbed one of their abandoned glasses, rinsed it and filled it and then drank, and that helped, too.

He was fighting with himself over whether to fill a glass for Joey—the right thing to do, probably; the responsible thing, except if Joey wanted some goddamn water he could get it himself, because it wasn't Mitch's job to look after him—when a sudden loud bang made him flinch. Not a gun, he thought a split second later, though he'd already started to duck below the kitchen counter anyway, reflexive. Not a gun, but what? A window sash slamming shut? A door? The door—

He turned belatedly, suddenly realizing he wasn't just hearing his own heart pound; those were footsteps, heavy, booted. But he wasn't quick enough, and before he'd done more than register a figure that wasn't Joey in the corner of his eye, a sharp pain cracked through his head, bright as lightning, and everything went away.

 

 

 

**PART THREE:**

**raise.**  
To increase the amount of one's bet beyond the amount of the bet made by the preceding player on their turn.

 

Mitch came around with a throbbing headache, and for a moment he couldn't remember why. He remembered the liquor, and—and Joey. There was something over his head, his face, and he didn't know what. A blanket? Thrown over him to block out the morning light, maybe, and he'd forgotten doing it and was just that hungover?

It shouldn't have been this bad, not with the amount he remembered drinking. But hell, maybe that just meant he was getting too old for this shit.

And then he realized belatedly that he wasn't just hearing blood rushing through his ears. He was—he was in a car or something, he was moving; his arms were behind his back, and he was tied up somehow. And no sooner had his sluggish brain worked that out than the car was braking, and a second later it had stopped—doors opened, and someone grabbed Mitch roughly by the shoulders and hustled him out of it, letting him stumble down onto a stretch of asphalt on his knees without trying to catch him or steady him.

He couldn't tell where he was, except that it felt like a closed space—like he'd been driven into a warehouse or up to a covered loading dock. Something about the way things sounded, the echoes.

Which there were plenty of, because somewhere not all that far away from him, someone was talking. There was—it was Joey.

"—off of me now?"

A rustle of cloth.

" _Thank_ you," Joey said, a lot less muffled than before. Because there was a bag on Mitch's head, and there must have been one on Joey's, except Joey's had just gotten pulled away.

Mitch sucked in a ragged breath, distantly surprised by how relieved he felt. It wasn't like he could depend on Joey for any kind of rescue, he reminded himself. Joey'd been kidnapped right alongside him, after all—and was probably tied up too, for that matter.

But like this, hauled out of a car with a bag over his head, the memory of Kurylenko in front of Mitch, gun leveled, and the edge of the quarry dropping away behind him, was a little too close to shake off. And the worst part of that—worse even than the moment when he'd genuinely thought Kurylenko might shoot him in the head—had been how thoroughly _alone_ he'd felt. Ray had known he'd been taken, but not where; he hadn't managed to hide the phone. There hadn't been anybody around who would—who would hear if he screamed, who'd know they'd killed him and care about it. For a second all he'd been able to think about had been his body, how long he might end up lying there before Ray and Louis managed to find him.

This time, though, there was Joey. There was Joey, and Joey at least sort of cared what happened to Mitch, even if it was for all the wrong reasons—

"Hey, wait," Joey said. "What are you doing with him?"

"McDeere?" said someone else, who sounded even more Russian than they probably were in comparison to the faint undertone of Chicago Italian that was always lurking around the edges of Joey's voice. "Oh, come now, Mr. Morolto. You are well aware of the facts. Mr. McDeere was issued a warning. He chose not to heed it."

"What, seriously?" Joey said, and he sounded surprised, bewildered, without the least trace of fear or anger. "You mean that thing with Kurylenko? You have to be kidding me. McDeere's my pet lawyer, that's all; he does what I tell him, and he doesn't ask questions. I told him to hold up that photo of Kurylenko for the jury, and he did it. You think you got a problem with him? You don't. He's a fucking puppet, for Christ's sake."

"You expect Mr. Karpov to believe you don't seek his advice regarding legal matters?"

"I don't give a shit what Karpov's stupid enough to believe," Joey said, deceptively mild. "But if McDeere was one of my guys— _really_ one of my guys—I promise you he'd at least be wearing better suits."

Mitch stared into the dim blankness of the bag, and almost wanted to laugh. Except he didn't; he didn't at all, because what Joey was trying to do for him was—

"Mm," said the same someone else, unmoved. "And I suppose you go running to hide behind the skirts of the US Marshals with all your 'puppets'. Is that it?"

"Uh, no," Joey said. "I think you guys can thank yourselves for that one. That 'warning' of yours gave him a nice long look at Kurylenko, and he's the one who had to prep Belyakova for the stand. You remember her, right?"

There was a dull flat sound Mitch couldn't identify, and then something else—an indrawn breath, a wet little spatter. They—somebody had hit Joey, maybe split his lip, and he'd had to pause to spit some blood out after.

"Yeah, I thought you might," Joey murmured, level and unfazed.

"You tell me he is not important, you tell me he is important," said the other someone. "Which is it, hm? Do not attempt to play games with me, Mr. Morolto."

Mitch knelt there in the dark, head still pounding, and bit the inside of his cheek. He could stay quiet—let Joey keep trying, see what happened. Maybe it would work. Maybe there was a way out of this for him, and they'd shove him back in the car without ever taking the bag off, dump him on a street corner and leave him to call Louis or the police or a cab.

But he'd never been any good at keeping his head down, had he? And even if the whole idea of letting Joey take responsibility for him hadn't chafed on principle, it was—he couldn't leave Joey like this, goddammit. He'd only just finished thinking about what a relief it was that _he_ wasn't alone, that if the Russians executed him at least they'd probably dump his body in the same unmarked pit as Joey's. He couldn't go, even if it turned out they were willing to let him.

He thought fast, trying to remember the chart Louis had shown him, the row of other photos pinned up next to Kurylenko's. If Karpov was going to have anybody do this, it would probably be somebody the same level or higher. Right?

"Gavril Petrov, I presume," he said aloud, through the bag, and everybody nearby went silent. "And Mikhail Vedenin, too, no doubt. I don't believe we've had the pleasure."

More silence—and then a set of slow, deliberate footsteps advanced on him. Trying to up the tension, Mitch thought, and kind of wanted to laugh again; it really wasn't necessary.

And then he had an instant's warning in the way the bag shifted overhead, and suddenly it was gone. The air felt wonderfully cool and fresh against Mitch's face, and he sucked in a nice deep breath and felt the pain in his head start to ease a little.

It was Petrov standing over him, he was pretty sure. And back there, closer to Joey—that had to be Vedenin. Lucky guesses, but Mitch had always been pretty good at Battleship.

And Joey—Joey was staring at Mitch, too. Kneeling, like Mitch, with his hands behind him, and someone had _definitely_ hit him in the face; the dark bloody split in his lip stood out like a brand, and his teeth had gone a little pink. And he was looking at Mitch with totally undisguised disdain.

"You stupid fuck," he said, low, wondering. "Jesus Christ, McDeere—"

Mitch met his eyes calmly. "I told you, Morolto," he said, "I'm not that guy. I don't want to be that guy."

And he had an instant to watch the startled understanding dawn across Joey's face before Joey shut it down, went blank again—but that was okay. Mitch knew what he'd seen. It wasn't like he could blame Joey for being surprised; if anybody had told Mitch a month ago that he'd deliberately pass up a chance to let Joey Morolto take a hit from the Russians for him, he wouldn't have believed them either.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**ONE WEEK EARLIER**

Mitch glanced up at the sound of a quick light "shave-and-a-haircut" against the doorframe in his office, even though he didn't need to.

It wasn't like there were a lot of options. Ray and Tammy were still with Abby and Claire in Kentucky, and would be for at least a few more weeks, unless a miraculous all-clear came from Louis tomorrow. Mitch was trying not to pick up any new cases until this was all over with; he didn't want anybody who needed his help to end up gunned down by angry Russians.

The odds that it would be anybody but Joey were negligible. But Mitch still liked to wait for him to knock, still liked to look up as though he weren't sure—as if he hadn't thought about it that much, as if Joey showing up just didn't have that much significance.

He liked to think maybe it ground Joey's gears a little.

If it did, though, Joey didn't show it. He looked down at Mitch and tilted his head and smiled, and said, "Having a productive afternoon, Mitch?"

"Oh, absolutely," Mitch said, as if in earnest. "I've been looking forward to the day when I'd finally have the time to re-read Patrick's case paperwork from start to finish. It's been fantastic."

Joey's mouth slanted just a little higher at one corner. "Well, lucky you," he murmured.

Mitch snorted a little, and looked down at the papers on his desk again, idly paging through a stack—as if it still interested him more than Joey did. "Did you come by for any particular reason," he said, "or are you just bored?"

"Just checking in, that's all," Joey said, and shifted in the corner of Mitch's eye—pushing off the doorframe, crossing the office, until he could come to a stop with a hip leaned up against the edge of the desk. He paused for a moment, and then reached over and swiped a handful of pages off the top of the stack; not even to read them, just because it would make Mitch look up.

He never had seemed to like it much when he didn't have Mitch's full attention.

"It occurred to me," Joey was saying, "that maybe—just maybe—there was a chance that our friend Mr. Coleman would be ever so slightly more prompt to get in touch with you than with me, if he had anything to share."

"I can't imagine why," Mitch said.

"And, as they say," Joey went on, as if Mitch hadn't spoken, "it never hurts to ask."

He raised an eyebrow, and Mitch stared at him flatly for a long moment and then conceded, without bothering to try to pretend to be polite about it. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I haven't heard anything new from Louis since he called the other day. You know," Mitch felt compelled to add, "the last time you were here?"

"Aw, I thought you enjoyed my little visits," Joey murmured. "Seeing as, unless we should end up in the tender care of the US Marshals Service after all, me and my guys are still handling your security, one would think you might express a bit more gratitude."

Mitch kind of wanted to roll his eyes; it was true, sure, but he didn't like being reminded of it, didn't like being made conscious of the fact that in a sense, he was relying on Joey at least as much as he'd ever relied on Louis.

Except he found himself pausing instead. Pausing, and then saying carefully, "You know, I've been meaning to ask you, Joey. When you killed Kurylenko—" He stopped, not quite sure how to say it.

"Yeah?" Joey prompted, after a moment.

"You told Louis it was self-defense," Mitch said. "But if Karpov had sent Kurylenko after you—I mean, taking out Joey Morolto, that would be a major operation. Kurylenko wouldn't make that kind of move on his own."

"Then I guess maybe that's not the kind of self-defense I meant."

Joey's tone was light, full of ingenuous agreement that was thoroughly feigned. But underneath that there was a bit of bite to it, as if just hearing Kurylenko's name was putting him on edge.

"But," Mitch began, and Joey interrupted him with a sudden frustrated noise and smacked the edge of the desk sharply with one hand.

"How many times do we need to go over this? I'm handling your security, Mitch. I handled it."

Mitch blinked. "What—are you saying this had something to do with me?"

Joey gave him a sharp, almost pitying look, like he wasn't sure how Mitch had survived this long without him. "He was planning to firebomb your office. I took care of it."

Mitch stared at him. "Joey, protecting _me_ isn't self-defense."

Joey shrugged one shoulder, almost dismissive, like he was shaking off a fly. "Sure it is. You know how this works, McDeere. You're under my protection, my _family's_ protection. Anything happens to you, that makes me look weak. Makes me look like I don't keep my promises—like I can't."

"Joey—"

And then, all at once, Joey blazed up: he turned, one quick sharp motion, and leaned in over the desk, and it felt like suddenly half the space in the room was taken up by him. He was a little shorter than Mitch, a little leaner, so much younger—but right that second, he didn't look it. He looked angry, angry and fierce and incredibly dangerous.

"I warned him," he told Mitch, soft. "I warned him _and_ his boss. I told them; I told everybody. No one touches you but me. _No one_."

He fell silent, but didn't turn away, didn't blink. His eyes were pale, steady and intent on Mitch's face, and Mitch felt like he ought to do something, anything, to break the strange heavy tension, but he was—he couldn't. Couldn't move, couldn't look away; he was suspended, caught up in whatever this was just as firmly as Joey.

And then Joey drew a quick little breath and jerked his gaze away, turned and strode out without saying another word; and Mitch was left sitting there in his office alone, mouth dry and heart pounding, feeling like he'd heard something Joey hadn't meant to say, and like if he'd only understood it, then maybe he'd know what to do about it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They didn't leave him and Joey alone together.

They didn't even put them in the same room. Warehouse, back entrance to some other industrial property—whatever this was, it had a basement level with multiple rooms. Mitch and Joey were hauled down the central corridor, but then Mitch was jerked to the left. He had a split second to twist his head and catch Joey's eye, and then whichever goon of Karpov's it was who had him by the arm pushed him sharply, and he was through a plain metal door, stumbling into a dingy little space. He could tell where ground level was by the pair of grungy little windows set at the top of one wall—a foot high, maybe, wider than they were tall. And of course it was still the middle of the night, so they weren't letting a whole lot of light in; it was all bare concrete and grime and shadows.

And a pair of chairs, spattered unevenly with something Mitch hoped was rust rather than blood, and bolted to the floor. Fantastic.

Karpov's guy settled Mitch into one of the chairs with one heavy hand on Mitch's shoulder; Mitch was ziptied, so the guy tied him in place with two more zipties, one to secure each arm to two of the struts at the back of the chair.

"Efficient," Mitch muttered, and the guy didn't hit him but gave him a long even look that said it wasn't off the table if he kept running his mouth.

And then he heard a distant muffled sound, and flinched.

He recognized it. How could he not? He still thought of it, sometimes: not just the conversation he'd had with Joey, _everything I never wanted to be_ , but how Joey had walked away from him after. Had walked away from him and had opened a door to a room with a man in a chair, beaten bloody, face distorted, eyes so badly swollen it had been impossible to tell whether he'd even seen Mitch standing there.

And of course the Russians were going to drag this out. Karpov probably meant to kill Joey, yeah; but he wanted to punish Joey first, wanted to demonstrate exactly what he could do to anyone who crossed him—that it didn't matter if you thought you had power of your own, if you had a whole family that answered to you, because he could still break you if he chose to. Hell, he probably had someone in there taking pictures he could send to Joey's guys before leaving Joey's body somewhere for them to find.

Joey'd killed Kurylenko for the exact same reason. It couldn't be anything he hadn't been expecting. It was the way Joey's world worked, and Joey knew it. Joey knew it and hated it—but he'd played his part anyway, warning off Kurylenko and then taking him out when he didn't listen. And he'd done it for Mitch—

But that wasn't Mitch's fault. He didn't have anything to apologize for.

Except knowing that didn't help him shake the slow cold nausea churning in the pit of his stomach at the first bitten-off cry of pain, somewhere down the hall. He bit his lip and clenched his fists, and told himself to get a grip.

He didn't have time to sit here arguing with himself over the ethics of Karpov beating Joey Morolto to a pulp. If they were going to get out of here alive, they needed a goddamn plan.

 

 

By the time they dragged Joey in, Mitch had one.

It was crappy, but they were already running out of time; Mitch was lucky Joey was still breathing at all.

Which he was. Mitch thought for a long cold second that he might not be, but he kept watching while the Russians heaved Joey around to the second chair and ziptied him down, and Joey's throat was moving—swallowing down blood, probably. As they held him still and fastened the zipties, one of them must have pressed too hard in the wrong place; Joey grimaced a little and made a small protesting sound, and one of them laughed.

So not just alive, but at least mostly conscious. Mitch sucked in a quick relieved breath, and then cleared his throat and said, "Hey. Hey, listen. I want to talk to your boss."

One of them gave him a distantly pitying sort of look. "Oh, you will, Mr. McDeere."

"Your boss knows who I am, and I wouldn't expect any less," Mitch said quickly. "But how much does he know? I've got history with the Moroltos. You think I owe this guy my loyalty or something? I don't owe him shit except maybe a couple bullets to the head."

"But you work for him anyway," the same guy said, dubious.

"He threatened my family," Mitch said, putting every inch of resentment he'd ever felt toward Joey into the words. "His father ruined my life, and just when I finally thought I was in the clear, he showed up to ruin it again. I'd never have come within a mile of him if I'd had any way to be sure he wouldn't just kill me and call it a day—but your boss could do that for me. He could protect me. I'm a good lawyer; Morolto wouldn't have gone to so much trouble to get me on a leash if I weren't."

And this guy clearly wasn't high enough up to make this decision by himself, but that was okay. All Mitch needed was for it to sound convincing enough that he'd pass it along to somebody who could.

"I just want to talk about it," Mitch repeated. "See if there's some kind of deal we could make that would benefit both of us. If it turns out there isn't, your boss can still shoot me in the head and feed me to his dogs. Come on."

The guy looked at Mitch, and then at his buddy; there was a quiet conversation in Russian that Mitch couldn't even hope to follow, and then the guy tilted his head and said, "I will mention the possibility to Mr. Karpov. We will see what he has to say."

"Thank you," Mitch said quickly. "Thanks. That's all I wanted."

And then they left—both of them, closing that bare metal door tight behind them, and maybe if Mitch was lucky they were both going to Karpov, and there was nobody left standing outside the room to listen in.

He looked over at Joey again, and couldn't help but wince. Because Joey was a mess, one eye already swollen up so badly it was nearly shut and the other on the way there, blood seeping from three or four new wounds to his mouth alongside the split lip he'd already gotten—plus a brand-new break in the thin skin over his brow on one side, his cheekbone on the other. The damage was fresh enough that he hadn't had time to bruise for real, his face red with swelling rather than purple; but there were faint blue shadows starting to show through, and he was going to look like shit tomorrow.

If they were both still alive tomorrow.

Mitch made himself look closer, but the line of Joey's nose looked okay. The line of his jaw, too, at least as far as Mitch could see with Joey's head at that angle, and the bones around his eyes. They'd only been softening him up, then; they hadn't broken anything crucial, not yet.

"Joey," he said, fast and quiet. "Joey—"

Joey made another little protesting noise, and cracked the less swollen eye to peer at Mitch. "Fuck you," he said unsteadily, low and hoarse, and Mitch was so glad he could talk at all that he didn't even mind.

"Joey, thank god," he said, and Joey blinked at him and went silent. "When that guy comes back, I'm hoping it'll be to take me to Karpov. He'll have to cut the zipties holding me to the chair first—and if he does that, I know this sounds ridiculous but I need you to kick him."

"Kick him," Joey repeated, flat.

"Yeah. Kick him, hard. And make him angry," Mitch added, "if you can."

Joey stared at him out of that one working eye, and then let his head tip back against the chair, and the noise he made then sounded so much like coughing that it took Mitch a second to realize it was a laugh instead. " _Angry_? Are you kidding me?" he managed. "Look at me, fucking hell. And you want me to make _that_ guy angry?"

"Joey—"

"You're going to be the goddamn death of me, Mitch," Joey rasped out, with another of those soft scraping laughs.

"If we can pull this off, we might be able to get out of here alive," Mitch said, "and I don't know how many more chances we'll get. Joey, please," and then he cut himself off—was that footsteps?

And sure enough, the door swung open again before Joey could answer, and the guy Mitch had spoken to came back in. Mitch bit the inside of his cheek, heart pounding, and made himself look up, and the guy said, "Yes, very well. Mr. Karpov will speak with you. He wishes to hear what you have to say, though he can provide you with no guarantees."

"That's fine, that's fine," Mitch said, and next to him Joey laughed again.

"Fuck you. You piece of shit, McDeere, I'm going to fucking kill you—" and right, that was exactly what Joey ought to be saying, given that he'd heard Mitch apparently trying to set up a deal with Karpov right in front of him.

Mitch flinched away from him a little, and said to the guy, "Come on, man, get me out of here," and the guy did exactly what he'd been hoping: their chairs were both bolted down facing the door, and it was just plain easier to come toward Mitch from the front, lean around him to cut the zipties, even though rounding the chair and cutting them from the back would have kept the guy out of range of Joey.

The chairs were set maybe a foot or two apart—far enough that two people strapped into them couldn't help each other, not like if they'd been tied back-to-back; but more than close enough for Joey to kick out.

He didn't do it right away. He shouted at Mitch a little more, some long string of insults in Italian, and then added, "and you, you son of a bitch," and made it clear he was talking to Karpov's guy instead by tacking on some presumably obscene Russian.

The guy placidly ignored it, pulling a knife and leaning in to set it to one of the zipties holding Mitch to the chair. And then Joey met Mitch's eyes around the guy's shoulder, and did it.

Joey had never been one for half-measures; he caught the guy in the side of the knee, hard enough that Mitch was pretty sure he heard something crack a little. Mitch tensed at the same time, tensed and twisted his wrists hard against the guy's knife, and the blade opened up a hot sharp line along his forearm, the side of his palm, but it caught the ziptie around his wrists along the way.

He stayed where he was for a moment. The guy tipped into him and swore in Russian, and Mitch flinched and kept his freed wrists pressed to each other and didn't move, long enough to let the guy conclude he was still bound.

Which the guy apparently did, because he didn't spare a thought for Mitch—he shoved himself up and away from Mitch and turned, and caught Joey immediately with a heavy blow across the face that would have knocked him out of his own chair if he hadn't been tied to it. And the guy was still favoring the leg a little as he stood there, so Joey must have landed a damn good hit.

Then again, Mitch supposed Joey probably did know where to aim to maximize the damage.

"I do not have permission to kill you," the guy was saying, low, through gritted teeth, and then he hit Joey again, harder. "But you must understand, Mr. Morolto, that you are in some sense dead already. So if you die a little too early, that is small misfortune only."

Mitch eased loose. The guy had only cut through one of the zipties holding him to the chair, not both; but he had an arm free, and if he just got the angle right—

"Is that so," Joey said, and paused to spit a little blood straight into the guy's face. "Well, that's not good enough for me, is the thing. I'm not going to settle for less than a giant fucking misfortune for you, pal," and as the guy leaned in closer, absently wiping Joey's blood from his own cheek, that was when Mitch took the swing.

The guy wasn't expecting it, and he'd already done a quarter of the work, leaning toward Joey like that. Mitch's blow smashed his head down and sideways, into the upper part of the frame of Mitch's chair—and if it hadn't been bolted to the floor, it would have toppled away from the impact, but as it was the guy's head made a sick flat sound, and he crumpled against the side of Mitch's chair and then slid to the floor.

Mitch swallowed hard, but—fuck, it wasn't like he could call 911 for this guy, and they had to get out of here and do it fast.

"Well, who knew," Joey muttered. "Who knew you had it in you, huh?"

"Shut up," Mitch said, absent, and then braced himself to reach for the guy's slack hand—and the knife that was still in it. It only took him a moment to cut himself loose, and his arm was still bleeding but not nearly as badly as Joey, so it was safe to ignore it for at least a few minutes.

The guy had closed the door again behind him; they had to have some time before anyone noticed he hadn't brought Mitch out, but how much was anybody's guess. There was nothing in here to block the door with—if they went for the windows and broke them, they were going to have to do it fast, because there was no way they could slow down anybody coming to investigate the noise—

Except maybe they could, a little. Mitch gripped the guy by the shoulders; and it wasn't any guarantee Mitch hadn't given him brain damage, but at least he could feel that the guy was still breathing. Towing him over in front of the door wouldn't hamper the rest of Karpov's guys for long, but it was better than nothing.

Cutting Joey free was kind of strange. Getting kidnapped by the Russian mob had kind of taken Mitch's mind off of the—off of what they'd done ... god, two hours ago? Three? It felt like it had been at least a week; but Mitch set the blade of the knife against each of Joey's zipties and pressed until they split, and then it was—he was just standing there, leaning in over Joey with Joey's bare wrist in his hand. And being this close to Joey, touching him, was—

—not important, Mitch told himself firmly. He had to get Joey up and out of here before a lot of angry Russians killed them both. Trying to decide what adjectives to apply to the experience of physical contact with Joey Morolto post-mutual handjob was just going to have to take a goddamn back seat.

"Come on, Joey," he said aloud, and managed to sling Joey's arm around his shoulder and lift him from the chair. He heard Joey's breath catch sharply; but if it hurt, and it probably did, Joey didn't complain.

The windows were high, but there was a lip of concrete just underneath them, and with a moment's effort Mitch could pull himself up far enough to set an elbow to one. He took one long slow breath and let it out, and then drew his arm back and swung, and broke it with a smash.

After that, it was all—it didn't even feel like him doing it. Adrenaline filled him with a sense of clear sharp focus, and it was like he was watching himself from a step away, directing: knock the loose glass free. Drop back down. Get Joey over to the wall; give him a step up, lift, push, anything to get him up there far enough to pull himself through.

And Joey might be hurt, but he was smaller than Mitch, and able to scrabble his way through the broken window without too much trouble. If anybody slowed them down, it was Mitch; he hadn't taken the time to clear all the little jagged bits of broken glass from the edges of the window, and he caught his shoulder, one arm, his shoulder again, blood rushing in his ears and heart hammering, every little shift of his own clothes against concrete sounding to him like footsteps in the hallway.

The last thing he heard, as he finally worked his torso through and elbow-crawled his way out onto the pavement, probably was footsteps. But if it was, they were too late: he rolled gratefully away from the little window and up onto his hands and knees, an inch away from where Joey had dropped prone, in some kind of empty lot, and nothing had ever felt as good as the night air against his face.

He let himself enjoy it for a second. And then he reached over and grabbed Joey, shook him, and felt an instant's apprehension before Joey shifted under his hands and groaned a little.

"Shh," he hissed, and Joey obediently quieted. "Joey—"

"If your plan relies on me kicking anybody else," Joey muttered, "you are shit out of luck."

Mitch swallowed down a laugh that would have come out hysterical, and shook his head instead. "Just get up," he whispered. "Come on, get up," and he found Joey's arm again, looped his own around Joey's waist, and half-led, half-carried him away through the dark.

 

 

 

**PART FOUR:**

**showdown.**  
The showing of all remaining players' cards, following the final betting round.

 

There was no way they could hope to catch a cab like this.

There was blood all over Joey—and all over Mitch, too, both Joey's and his own where his arm and hand were still bleeding. Once they'd gotten far enough away that they'd hit some lighted streets with other pedestrians, and could afford to slow down, it was all Mitch could do to hope that he looked like a drunk guy helping a friend home from a bar fight.

He'd have preferred to call 911 and get Joey an ambulance, because Joey was leaning into him more and more heavily, and his hand was cold beneath Mitch's, his footsteps lagging; the further they went, the more often he stumbled.

But of course Joey wouldn't let him. "You fucking kidding me?" he said, when Mitch first brought it up. "What makes you think that's not the first place Karpov would look for us? He knows what kind of shape I'm in, and he's not stupid."

And Mitch had to admit he probably wasn't wrong. But the safehouse had already been on the outskirts of DC, and Mitch couldn't guess how long they'd been unconscious in the car. He wasn't entirely sure where they were, but trying to walk the whole way back like this was a terrible idea.

Which was how Mitch ended up stealing a stranger's bicycle, somewhere in Washington DC at like four in the morning, with Joey Morolto sitting on the curb watching him do it.

"Man, you have got to be kidding me," Joey said.

"Nope," Mitch said.

He still had the knife he'd taken off the Russian guy, and the bike lock he'd chosen was old, cheap—and took a key, not a combination. But the Russian guy's knife was just a bit too wide to fit.

He tried anyway, pressing the tip of the knife in as far as he could, but it was already obvious it wasn't going to work, and he bit down on a curse. As if there weren't enough things that had _already_ gone wrong today—

"Try mine."

Mitch looked up.

Joey still had his eyes mostly closed, his head tipped sideways like he couldn't quite manage to hold it up straight anymore. But he had an arm out, a hand reaching in Mitch's direction, and pinned between his fingers, offered up, was a slim little butterfly knife.

Mitch blinked at him.

"Marshals took my gun, remember?" Joey said. "Told you I still had a knife."

Mitch stared at him, and for a brief hysterical moment he almost wanted to laugh. "What, you couldn't have pulled that back when they first had us ziptied?"

Joey shrugged one shoulder. "Couldn't get to it, obviously."

Mitch felt his mouth twitch. He thought about telling Joey no thanks, because he didn't know where that knife had been—but he still didn't need to know, he decided, and it was definitely going to be a better fit for this bike lock than the Russian's. So he reached out and took it instead. The blade fit into the lock at least twice as deep as the other knife had, and Mitch held it there and wiggled it, and pushed some more, putting as steady a pressure on the lock as he could; and finally something in there gave way with a click and it opened.

"Thank god," he said, and then worked the lock free and wheeled the bike over in front of Joey.

Joey gave him as flatly dubious a look as possible, with his one halfway-okay eye.

"You don't want to go to a hospital? Fine," Mitch said. "But we've got to cover some ground here, and I'm not princess-carrying you."

Joey snorted, and then winced like it had hurt his face to do, which it probably had. "Yeah, yeah," he said, and then with a lot of effort and a low uncomfortable sound, he levered himself up off the sidewalk. "What about my knife?"

"I'm not the one who looks like he's going to pass out in the middle of the road," Mitch said. "I'll give it back to you once I can be sure you aren't going to stab yourself with it by accident."

Joey eyeballed him dourly but didn't argue, and then it was—it was time to get on the bike.

And yeah, there was definitely plenty that was ludicrous about Mitch installing a wobbly Joey on the back of a bicycle—lucky Mitch had managed to find one with a storage rack over the rear wheel, to give Joey someplace to sit. It was quieter than a motorcycle, wouldn't draw as much attention, and it was going to be a hell of a lot faster than shambling along on foot. They _did_ need a way to move quicker, and this counted.

But god help him, it did feel fucking silly to be biking along down a quiet street at this hour, with Joey's shaky hands clutching him around the waist, Joey's head tipped forward against Mitch's back between his shoulder blades. Like Mitch was back in middle school, giving Robin Perry a ride down the street, except this time both their lives were on the line.

He kept going determinedly in what he was pretty sure was the right direction, and within about half an hour, he spotted a metro station.

He left the bike outside; and the odds were against it, but he liked to think maybe the owner had half a shot at finding it again.

 

 

Mitch almost fell asleep on the metro. It was all too easy, with Joey huddled against Mitch's shoulder to shield his bloody face from anybody else coming on.

But the station announcements kept him from slipping under completely, that calm even voice over the PA coming through just a little too loud to tune out, and when they hit the right stop at last, he herded Joey off the train and out into the street.

Because there was one place they could go where pretty much nobody would expect them to be.

Mitch hadn't been spending much time in the house even before Louis had packed them off to that safehouse. It was—it had been weird, so empty, with Abby and Claire gone and not even Ray and Tammy around to fill the space. Mitch had felt more alone by himself in that house than he'd ever felt when he worked through the night in his office, and he'd been avoiding it when he could; coming by to change clothes and shower and check the mail, and steering clear the rest of the time.

But Karpov would probably be expecting Joey to return to his own turf, and Mitch to go with him or to the Marshals. It would take him time to realize Joey hadn't done it, and even more time to track them down—and they only needed a few hours to clean up and rest, that was all. Ought to be safe enough for that long.

It was almost weirder than the stupid bike ride had been, settling Joey in place at Mitch's own goddamn kitchen table. Mitch went automatically to the first-floor bathroom for gauze, bandages, washcloths, water, and when he came back Joey was still there but had crossed his arms over the table and laid his head down on them.

A lot of the wounds on his face had started to clot and scab up a little. But he was still getting blood on the table.

"Hey," Mitch said to him quietly, and then it was—he only meant to clean Joey up, dipping one of the washcloths in a bowl of water and setting it to Joey's face. But Joey sat there with his eyes shut and—and _let_ Mitch, let Mitch ease him up and tip his chin around and touch him, even though it had to hurt.

Mitch caught himself staring at Joey's less-swollen eye, his eyelashes, and god, Mitch was tired.

He cleared his throat, and made himself look away. "So—your guys, they—"

"Probably think I'm dead," Joey filled in, low, every word sounding like it scraped his throat on the way out.

"They'd know Karpov took you? That fast?"

Joey was silent for a moment. And then he cracked that good eye and smiled at Mitch, the barest unsteady shadow of his usual smirk. "Oh, Mitch. You haven't figured it out yet?"

Mitch blinked. "Haven't figured what out yet?"

"It was Sal," Joey said tiredly.

"What?"

"It was Sal. The booze. Sweet of your buddy Louis to worry that it was on his end, but it wasn't. My guys were looking after you; they might not know as much as the Marshals do about this investigation, but they know plenty. We were there for what, two days? Three? And nobody touched us. I call Sal to ask him to send a guy out to run a little errand for us, and inside six hours we got Russians up our asses." He closed the good eye again and shook his head, wincing when the motion made Mitch's washcloth catch a little against the edge of one cut. "It wasn't anybody in Louis's office, Mitch. It was Sal."

He stopped, and then twisted in his chair, leaned away from Mitch's touch enough to put a hand over his eyes.

"Joey—"

"I knew what I was doing, when I called him," Joey said, low. "Shouldn't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to. And now I know the answer."

And he was trying to be matter-of-fact about it, like it didn't touch him. But he was—he was too hurt, maybe, too tired, exhausted and in pain and maybe even a little hungover, by now. His voice was unsteady, and he hadn't looked up.

Nothing he was saying was untrue, Mitch thought, not exactly. Sal was high up, and it was important for Joey to know whether or not he could count on his guys. It was just that there was a whole bunch of other stuff Joey _wasn't_ saying. Like, maybe, that he'd wanted to be able to trust Sal. That he'd thought he could; that it hurt to discover he couldn't, and that he didn't know what to do about it—or that he did know, but wished he didn't. That there was going to be another body turning up in a dumpster somewhere, and Joey's operation was going to suffer for it, and it was only going to make everything worse. But Sal had given Joey up to Karpov, and Joey couldn't pretend he hadn't, either.

"Joey," Mitch said, and was distantly surprised at how hard it was to get out—there was a tightness closing up his throat, a weird wistful ache he couldn't define. "Couldn't you—couldn't you just let them?"

Joey was silent.

"Think you're dead, I mean," Mitch elaborated. "Karpov knows you aren't, but he's not exactly going to be eager to tell everybody he had you and you got away from him. You just proved you can trust Louis. You could go into protection for real. You could—you don't—" He paused, trying to work out how to say it. "You could be someone else. Someone you want to be."

Joey moved his hand at last, and looked up. He still couldn't open that one eye, and Christ, Mitch needed to get him some ice or something. But for a long moment he kept on not saying anything, and his face was distorted, swelling, but Mitch could have sworn he looked tempted; like it meant something to him, like he'd always wanted someone to tell him he could walk away—

"No," Joey said softly. "No. I can't do that. I got a responsibility here, Mitch. I got a responsibility to my family, to Patrick. Without me, who's going to look out for them? Patrick's not off the hook yet, and I have no idea how many of my guys have been helping Sal, whether he was planning to split the family or just murder everybody who wasn't with him and then go running to the Russians. I can't just let that happen." He stopped for a second, and looked at Mitch again, and one corner of his bleeding mouth quirked up. "I'm not that guy, McDeere. I don't want to be that guy."

A deliberate echo, and Mitch couldn't help but acknowledge the hit. Yeah, it was stupid of Joey not to take the out, to wade right back into this mess instead; but it had been stupid of Mitch not to take the out Joey had tried to give him earlier, pushing, making sure the Russians took him too.

Because maybe sometimes they struggled not to fold—but in the end neither of them had ever actually done it, either.

"You can't tell me you'd have gotten out and left if you'd had the chance," Joey said, pressing the point home. "You never do. This shit you stepped in with Noble—yeah, I know about that, Mitch, I pay attention. You can't tell me you'd have taken off, knowing what they were up to and that maybe you were the only guy who knew the whole picture, the only guy who could make sure they got what they deserved. You didn't run."

"No," Mitch agreed. And the hell of it was that he really did understand, even if he wished he didn't. He bit his lip and sighed a little through his nose, shook his head; and then he leaned in and got a hand on Joey's chin again, and pressed the washcloth back into place over the biggest cut above Joey's eye. "Well, if you aren't going into hiding, then you're going to need a plan. You've got to figure out how to get rid of Sal and strengthen the rest of your organization at the same time, if you're ever going to be able to handle the Russians."

"Well, well, well," Joey said after a moment. "You're starting to sound like some kind of mob lawyer. Thought you didn't want to end up cleaning up after crooks."

Mitch hesitated. The idea sent a chill down his spine, the same way it always had; that was the opposite of everything he wanted to stand for. But Joey knew that—Joey knew that, knew Mitch hated it, and maybe he was depending on it. Maybe that was why he'd said it.

So Mitch didn't get angry, and he didn't move away. Maybe Joey was trying to piss him off. But if he was, Mitch didn't have to let it work. "You finish off the Russians," he said evenly, "and go legit the way you keep saying, and I won't have to."

He pulled the washcloth away, dipped it in the water again and rinsed the worst of the blood out; and when he turned back toward Joey again, Joey was watching him, unsmiling, silent and serious.

"This isn't your fight, Mitch," Joey said at last, almost gently.

And Mitch couldn't help but laugh at that, sharp and unexpected. He shook his head, and looked at Joey, and couldn't do anything but smile. "I don't know, Joey," he said, "I'm kind of starting to think there's no such thing."

They hadn't talked about it; even if it had been anywhere near a reasonable time for it, Mitch didn't know what the hell to say. But it was—it was just like in the room, suddenly. They were sitting close to each other, one of Mitch's knees between Joey's, the better to let him lean near enough to hold the washcloth to Joey's face. And they weren't even touching skin-to-skin this time, but suddenly all Mitch could think about was pressing Joey against that safehouse wall, and the soft hot skin at the base of Joey's throat against his thumb, the pale angle of Joey's bare hip under his hand.

They'd jerked themselves off, and Mitch had fucked Joey with his fingers. But they hadn't kissed. They hadn't kissed, not once, and sitting here watching Joey bleed in his kitchen, suddenly Mitch couldn't stand that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**THREE DAYS EARLIER**

"Well," Joey said, angling a long assessing look around the main room. "This is going to be fun."

"Yeah," Mitch said flatly.

Joey glanced over at him with one of those smug little smiles he liked so much. "Aw, come on. We're going to be fine, as long as we can keep from killing each other."

"I'm not making any promises," Mitch told him, and then brushed past him and out of the entryway.

The general layout really did feel familiar; maybe it was part of what made a good safehouse, this kind of boring cookie-cutter architecture. Maybe it was just that properties like this were easy for the Marshals Service to purchase, relatively inexpensive and routinely for sale across multiple cities.

Or maybe Mitch was just projecting, because he'd take any excuse to resent this place that he could get his hands on.

"It's like a slumber party," Joey was saying behind him, "on Uncle Sam's dime! We can braid each other's hair and tell each other all our secrets."

"I'm pretty sure you already know most of mine," Mitch said, without looking at him, "and I really don't want to know yours, thanks all the same. I like being able to sleep at night."

"Aw, man," Joey said, all false disappointment. "You mean you aren't going to stay up and help me do my nails?"

Mitch couldn't help but shoot him a withering glance, at that, and of course all Joey did was beam at him winningly.

"No? What about a classic movie marathon? Could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Mitch stared at him, and then turned away to walk into the kitchen, shaking his head disbelievingly. "There are a lot of things I want from you, Joey," he said, half over his shoulder, "but I can tell you right now that friendship isn't one of them."

"Suit yourself," Joey said easily, throwing himself down into a casual drape across the bland beige couch in the living room with a sigh; and Mitch bit the inside of his cheek, reminded himself carefully that yelling at Joey wasn't going to make this any easier, and wished, in an absent sort of way, that he didn't already know there was absolutely no hope that Louis had had this place's refrigerator stocked with beer. Because god, he wanted a drink, and he didn't know how he was ever going to make it through a week in a safehouse with Joey Morolto without one.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He didn't rush it.

He finished cleaning up Joey's face as best he could, and belatedly took a minute to wash off his own arm and hand while he was at it, slapping a pair of bandaids over the deepest part of the cut just to help hold the edges together. Joey got a slightly more exciting collection of butterfly bandages and taped-down gauze; he might have been better off with a few stitches in a couple spots, but Mitch could barely see straight and it wasn't really the best time for him to try stabbing Joey in the face with a needle. It could wait until they'd slept.

But he didn't forget about it, either. He helped Joey up out of his chair with a careful hand against Joey's back, and led him down the hallway to the first-floor bedroom, opened the door for him and eased him into place on the edge of the bed; and all the while, he was thinking about it.

He was thinking about it so hard that he startled a little when Joey said suddenly, "Thanks."

"What for?"

Joey glanced at him, quick pale flicker of that one good eye. "You didn't have to do any of this for me." He paused, and huffed an unamused little laugh. "Just imagine that, huh? Of all the guys in the world I should have had to lean on, it's Sal who fucks me over; and of all the guys who got every reason to leave my dead body in a basement for the Russians, it's—" He stopped, and looked away, and in the dim light of the bedside lamp, Mitch saw the muscles in his jaw working. "It's you who—it's you."

"I wasn't going to leave you there like that," Mitch said. "Jesus, Joey—"

And Joey laughed again, louder, shakier, and put a hand over his face. "I know. I know you wouldn't," he muttered. "And fuck you for that, Mitch McDeere."

It probably wasn't the right moment. But Mitch hadn't stopped thinking about it, and like this, looking down at Joey, eyes closed, hand pressed over his exhausted bruised-up face, sitting on the edge of Mitch's bed—he had to. He had to.

He tried to be careful. Just settled two fingertips under Joey's chin, at first, thumb barely brushing Joey's bottom lip; and Joey resisted just a little, but finally, grudgingly, let Mitch tip his face up and out from behind his hand.

His eyes stayed closed, but he must have felt Mitch shift his weight somehow, or Mitch's breath against his cheek, or something. He went still under Mitch's hands, tense, and drew his face back in a quick stuttered jerk; but he didn't quite move his chin out of Mitch's grip.

"Joey," Mitch said, very low, and tried again—and this time Joey stiffened again, but didn't pull away.

Mitch touched his mouth to Joey's as gently as he could, all too conscious of the half-dozen splits and wounds to Joey's lips. And Joey let him, and didn't move.

"Joey," Mitch said again, even softer, and kissed the corner of his mouth, the bow of that stupid smirky upper lip, the hot swollen line of the lower.

Joey still didn't move. But he hadn't shoved Mitch off him or tugged away again or asked Mitch what the fuck he thought he was doing.

Mitch settled a hand on his chest gently, and then went for his top button—because of course his shirt was bloody, too, maybe even bloodier than Mitch's, and it wasn't like he was going to sleep in it.

And all at once Joey breathed out in a shaky rush against Mitch's mouth, and then did move: leaned up into Mitch in a rough little lurch, and grabbed for Mitch's waistband. "Really?" he said against Mitch's cheek, in a tone that would have been sweet if there hadn't been such a cold edge in it. "Now? You're that hard up, huh, with Abby out of the picture—"

"No," Mitch said, and caught Joey's hand in his. "No, come on. Jesus, Joey. That's not what I meant."

He pulled back a little, exasperated, except Joey didn't look teasing or smug or mocking, or anything else Mitch had been expecting. He looked blank, a little bewildered, and really tired.

He sat there while Mitch unbuttoned his shirt, and didn't make fun of Mitch even when it took three tries for Mitch's clumsy exhausted fingers to get the last button undone. He let Mitch unzip his pants and ease the waistband down his hips without making any more crude insinuations, and lifted up to let Mitch slide them down his legs without Mitch having to ask. He watched Mitch strip down, too, gaze flicking from Mitch's face to his hands, his chest, his briefs—and he had to be able to see that Mitch hadn't been kidding, and wasn't hard.

And then Mitch stepped in close again, and grazed Joey's unbandaged cheek with three fingertips, and leaned down.

Joey tensed up all over again. Mitch went still, waiting, to give him a chance to lie down and move away for real; but he didn't, and after another long quiet moment Mitch pressed his mouth to Joey's cheek. To Joey's cheek, and then in a soft careful line along Joey's bruised jaw.

And Joey let him, again. Joey let him, and softened by slow degrees, and when Mitch leaned in over him, eased him down and backward onto the bed, Joey let him do that, too.

Mitch kissed him again, gentle and closemouthed, and it tasted a little like blood, and maybe even more faintly like limoncello. The thought made Mitch smile a little, enough that he had to break the kiss for a second, and they were left looking at each other in the dimness, six inches apart.

"Fuck you, Mitch McDeere," Joey said, so soft it was hardly more than a whisper. And this time, when Mitch kissed him again, he finally fucking tipped his goddamn hand at last: he reached up and caught Mitch by the nape of the neck, dug his fingers into Mitch's hair, and kissed back.

 

 


End file.
